My understanding the later edition works like this yes. However if its a Win8.1 designed machine, (or late W7) And has the appropriate UEFI bios with key tattoo in place, it'll activate itself on install anyway.

I've just done this on a 1yr old Pavillion, and a 3yr old Lenovo mini PC with no sign of COA. All internal to BIOS

Before you install, check that your bios is set to UEFI and not legacy, otherwise the installer seems to want to partition it old styles which means you cant clone the install to a larger drive later on. Im not sure if changing windows 10 to UEFI boot from legacy is as possible as it was with 7.

Before you install, check that your bios is set to UEFI and not legacy, otherwise the installer seems to want to partition it old styles which means you cant clone the install to a larger drive later on. Im not sure if changing windows 10 to UEFI boot from legacy is as possible as it was with 7.

Cheers

Def uefi... Now just need to get my internet fixed before I begin.... Of all the weekends for it to fail completely

So after a little hemming and hawing Win10 is running very nicely on a new SSD, and the machine is happily dual booting either OS. Win10 runs sweet as a nut, although getting the sound to co-operate took some where. Bless Realtek.

I have'nt applied the Win7 OEM product key yet. My question is, if I apply it will Win7 still continue to be happy and run ongoing? It's going to take some time for me to move environments over as I'm not the only person who uses this machine.

I don't want Windows 7 to stop or be treated as 'abandoned and migrated' yet.

How far do you have to get thru the upgrade process before it makes your win 7 key valid for 10? I have a 32 bit install currently that I would want to nuke and replace with a 64 bit eventually, but with the free upgrade running out real soon now would want to get it accepting the win 7 key in the future when I finally get around to replacing the relic of a sata card with one that has newer drivers than 32 bit XP era ones.

How far do you have to get thru the upgrade process before it makes your win 7 key valid for 10? I have a 32 bit install currently that I would want to nuke and replace with a 64 bit eventually, but with the free upgrade running out real soon now would want to get it accepting the win 7 key in the future when I finally get around to replacing the relic of a sata card with one that has newer drivers than 32 bit XP era ones.

Using the MS deployment tool its one of the final phases. There is however a skip/not now option to let it continue in eval mode

How far do you have to get thru the upgrade process before it makes your win 7 key valid for 10? I have a 32 bit install currently that I would want to nuke and replace with a 64 bit eventually, but with the free upgrade running out real soon now would want to get it accepting the win 7 key in the future when I finally get around to replacing the relic of a sata card with one that has newer drivers than 32 bit XP era ones.

In theory if you blow the machine away and then put the 64-bit version on it should pick up the current activation after first login. I am pretty sure that it doesn't care if it is 32 or 64 as long as it is the same version (Home or Pro).

Hmmm, is my question unique? surely I can't be the only person on the planet who asked if they can keep their win7/8 partition running at the same time as win10?

Surprised there hasn't been an answer yet...

Unless Nathan can give a definitive answer here, probably none of us are actually Microsoft licensing experts enough to answer. That said, my guess is that your win7/8 key has been used or swapped to give the Windows 10 digital entitlement and so technically you should only be using one or the other, not both. Whether Microsoft have designed their licensing server to check and invalidate the old Win 7 install, I am not sure.

I didn't think about the licensing implications, just the technical ones. It's definitely possible to roll back to Win 7, so a dual-boot should work on a technical level. Whether it conforms with the licence is another question :)